My fathers kingdom was and is, all authorities agree, large. To walk border to border east-west, the traveler must budget haeen days. Its name is Ho, the fu term for harmony. fuism was an i of the first ruler (a straaste in our part of the world), and when hed cleared his expanse of field and forest of his ewo turies ago, he indulged himself in an hommage to the great ese thinker, much to the merriment of some of our staider neighbors, whose domains were proper Luftlunds and Dolphinlunds. We have an ey based upon truffles, in which our forests are spectacularly rich, aricity, which we were exp when other tries still read by kerosene lamp. Our army is the best in the region, every man a el -- the subtle secret of my fathers rule, if the truth be known. In this land every priest is a bishop, every ambulance-chaser a robed justice, every peasant a corporation and every street-er shouter Kant himself. My fathers genius was to promote his subjects, male and female, across the board, ceaselessly; the people of Ho warm themselves forever in the sun of Achievement. I was the only man in the kingdom who thought himself a donkey.
-- from the Autobiography
I am writing to you, Hannahbella, from a distant try. I daresay you remember it well. The King encloses the opening pages of his autobiography. He is most curious as to what your respoo them will be. He has labored mightily over their position, w without food, without sleep, for many days and nights.
The King has not been, in these months, in the best of spirits. He has read your article and declares himself to be very much impressed by it. He begs you, prior to publication in this try, to do him the great favor of ging the phrase "two disied and impartial arbiters" on page thirty-oo "maligs uhe ideological sway of still more maligs." Otherwise, he is delighted. He asks me to tell you that your touch is as adroit as ever.
Early iobiography (as you see; we enter the words: "My mother the Queen made a mirror pie, a splendid thing the size of a poker table. . ." The King wishes to know if poker tables are in use in faraway lands, and whether the reader in such places would prehend the dimensions of the pie. He tinues: ". . . in which refles from the kit delier exploded when the crew rolled it from the oven. We were kneeling side-by-side, peering into the depths of a new-made mirror pie, when my mother said to me, or rather her celestial image said to my dark, heavy-haired one, Get out. I ot bear to look upon your donkey face again. "
The King wishes to know, Hannahbella, whether this passage seems to you tainted by self-pity, or is, rather, suitably dispassionate.
He walks up and down the small room o his bedchamber, singing your praises. The decree having to do with your banishment will be resded, he says, the moment you agree to ge the phrase "two disied and impartial arbiters" to "maligs," etc. This I urge you to do with all speed.
The King has not been at his best. Peace, he says, is an unnatural dition. The try is prosperous, yes, and he uands that the people value peace, that they prefer to spin out their destinies in placid, undisturbed fashion. But his destiny, he says, is to alter the map of the world. He is sidering several new wars, small ones, he says, small but iing, plex, dicey, even. He would very much like to sult with you about them. He asks you to ge, on page forty-four of your article, the phrase "egregious usurpations" to "symbols of